RACISM STILL THE BIGGEST REASON FOR BLACKS BEHIND BARS

Thank you, but I don't need a lecture on personal responsibility.

Many of you apparently felt otherwise after reading my recent column
on the use of the justice system as a cudgel against black children.

The column dealt with the mistreatment of over 100 juveniles, most of
them African American, who were left in a flooded New Orleans
detention center for up to five days without food and water after
Hurricane Katrina. It was also about the death of Martin Lee
Anderson, an unresisting 14-year-old black kid who was hit, choked
and restrained by up to nine guards in a Panama City "boot camp."

The abuse and the disproportionate number of black kids who wind up
in those places was, I said, a legacy of the nation's historic
tendency to use its justice system to control a population it finds
frightening and inconvenient.

In response, a woman named Charlene demanded to know, "When is the
black community going to take responsibility for themselves?" An
individual named Don wrote, "Why are they in jail? Because most young
blacks are thugs, dope dealers and car thieves in my experience." A
fellow named Jay wrote that, "AA women need to stop having children
out of wedlock. . . . Raise a child in a home with a mother and
father and you will see the stats for crime go way down." Some
people, using statistics freshly pulled from their backsides, sought
to "prove" black kids commit pretty much all of the crime in the country.

And one individual said Martin Lee Anderson's guards "did us all a favor."

As I said, some people find the existence of black children inconvenient.

You want to talk responsibility? I'm fine with that. Much of what
ails African America lies squarely within its power to fix; I've been
saying that in this space for many years.

But the fact is, the need for greater personal responsibility,
important as it is, does not of itself account for all the
dysfunctions that beset the African-American community.

Of course, many white folks don't want to go there. And it never
fails to amaze me how they absolve themselves and this nation of the
charge of racism, how readily they look past, look through, flat-out
ignore, anything that says otherwise. Indeed, it's telling that of
all the dissenters preaching personal responsibility, not a single
one refuted or even addressed the statistics in the column suggesting
that racial animus plays a role in the disproportionate number of
black people behind bars.

I repeat: And Justice For Some, a 2000 study co-sponsored by the
Justice Department, found that a black drug defendant is 48 times
more likely to be jailed than a white one with the same record.

There's more. According to The Real War on Crime: The Report of the
National Criminal Justice Commission, blacks account for 13 percent
of all regular drug users but 35 percent of those arrested, 55
percent of those convicted and 74 percent of those imprisoned for
drug possession. A 2004 Miami Herald report found that a judicial
procedure that allows a defendant's record to be wiped clean of a
felony offense is given freely to white drug dealers, rapists and
child molesters. But to blacks? Not so much. And this remains true,
even when adjusted for socioeconomic factors.

Beg pardon, but "personal responsibility" does not explain those
disparities. And it's vexing that so many Caucasians find it so hard
to get their lips around the word that does.

But then, that would require of them more than the easy ability to
wag a finger at the failures of others. It would require a
willingness to own their own failures and to face truths that do not
flatter self-image -- something some white Americans clearly lack the
intestinal fortitude to do. So you'll forgive me if I find it hard to
take seriously all this pious advice to African Americans.

Responsibility is a two-way street.